Going South wrote:jadeja is past his prime. dhoni is not captain now to make him play inspire of his short comings. He is unfit to play IPL too but dhoni pulled strings to select him for chennai. bootlicker indeed.

He is still Bapu for test cricket today he gave 40 odd in 10 over spell in Nail biting Vijay Hazare 50/50 , played handy knock with the bats too, giving narrow win to Saurashtra I do not care even he is member of OWK or Bu** kisser Of MSD,he is ready to go and Fit 101%

What is OWK?

I don't think Jadeja is past his prime - it's just that now he has more competition than he's had till now. Same with Ashwin.It means both have to raise their games - they cannot afford to sit on past laurels.

Not a bad thing. Improves standard of team as a whole. Recently Ashwin was bowling leg-breaks, to add to his arsenal. The success of Chahal might have triggered this.

In general, except for Kohli (and probably Hardik for ODI/T20), not a single other player can afford to take his place for granted.Given Kohli's work ethic, unlikely he'd slacken even if his place is assured.Hardik needs some competition too - right now, there's no one pushing him for his place.

Boycs wrote:Lol England is the pinnacle for your perception of batsmen.

Have you ever visited here? They have to build our roads in circles as ever our cars swing as we drive around. And we can’t ever walk straight without seaming off to the side

Yes, I've been to England a few times - albeit a long time ago. Not been there this millenium.London, Birmingham, Manchester...

I remember taking a cab at Manchester to get to Manchester station. This was a long time ago - probably 1994 or so.

I wanted to see Old Trafford cricket stadium, so the cab guy drove past it and pointed it to me.Then he said "Am glad you're interested in seeing the cricket stadium - everyone who visits is always interested in seeing the football stadium".I said "No, I'm more interested in the cricket stadium. Jim Laker's 19 for 90, and all".I didn't expect him to react but he was thrilled. "Ah, yes. I was there, you know!"I smiled - he wasn't young, so he might well have been there - but am sure that's a tale of many a cab driver in Manchester, esp if their customer is a cricket tragic. :-)

Around this time (in the 2-3 months leading upto the IPL), players who are part of the IPL prefer to take it easy.Their franchises want them fighting fit - so they don't want to risk any injury.Not saying this is why Faf, AB and QdK are not taking part anymore in this ODI series, but this has been the trend in the past too.

The innings that Gavaskar rates as his most satisfying.Not his double hundreds or any of his 34 Test centuries, but a 57 he scored at Old Trafford in 1971.He explains why.

While talking about Manchester, I remembered this.(I want to see Kohli get similar conditions to bat on. Must say English wickets have, over the years, become much easier to bat on, especially in the second half of summer.)

raja wrote:Around this time (in the 2-3 months leading upto the IPL), players who are part of the IPL prefer to take it easy.Their franchises want them fighting fit - so they don't want to risk any injury.Not saying this is why Faf, AB and QdK are not taking part anymore in this ODI series, but this has been the trend in the past too.

I am not aware about the nature of injuries to AB and Faf. AB is expected to play from 4th ODI onwards.

QDK was genuinely injured by a rising Bumrah delivery in the previous ODI, this was the very next ball after he played Bumrah awkwardly, ball rolled onto the stumps, but bails were not dislodged to the surprise of all . He has a race against time to be fit against Aussies.

Right now the South Africans resemble a walking wounded team. This is what happens when you set up traps for opposition, you have to first ensure you dont fall into it.

South Africans thought that they would overpower Indian batsmen with their pacers. They may have won the test series, but the loss in the third test seems to have turned the tables dramatically. Now it is Indian pacers and wrist spinners who are toying with South African batsmen.

Good total.Kohli great knock.Bhuvi rescuing the team once again. Kedar Jadhav, Pandya all are loose, middle order lacks stability.Shreyas Iyer must be thinking that he should have learnt bowling.Kedar is keeping his place in the side because of the 5 overs he bowls as the 6th bowler.He has done absolutely 0 with the bat recently.

Have SA just given up on this series and now engaging in rampant quota padding?

In domestic Zondo only averages 32.57 at a sr under 75.

If a better team is rolled out for Australia, Indian fans are in their rights to take exception to this.

I have no idea how Safrican fans feel about the quota manipulation, but this series result is not concluded, if this is as such , but India is meant to be a meaningful tour, even if its just odi. I know that if India tour NZ that I want the best team on the park as I do against England or Australia. Even if Australia is more significant to NZers. And Safrica too for that matter, I'm sick and tired of being thrashed by them.

Last edited by Paddles on Thu Feb 08, 2018 1:05 am, edited 2 times in total.

"Your inclination to assume and contradict is typical of Narcissism which is nothing about being pretty like the Narcissus fable."

bolero wrote:Paddles, I read in an article that South African Board has kind of given up on the series and wants to try out the youngsters with an eye on 2019 WC. Hence Zondo.

Behardien is 34, hardly spring chicken.

Once AB and Faf are back, SA line up will be more stable.

So by "try out the youngsters" they really mean try out more new quota players to find better quota players and further meet their quota requirements so that they can below the threshold for games in series that they havn't yet given up on but still meet their annual average requirements of quota players.

Still at 2-0 in a 6 match series at home, it seems far too soon. Once the series result is determined, I get that. But 3 out of 4 at home, with ABDV to return doesn't seem like time to pull up stumps.

Well, hats off to the Safrican team for performing so well over a long period of time during these quotas.

"Your inclination to assume and contradict is typical of Narcissism which is nothing about being pretty like the Narcissus fable."

Tinsel wrote:Paddles Are you excited about Tim Seifert and Chapman for Next 3 games in NZ .?

Not particularly, no.

Chapman has some skills, some serious talent, and could come off on any given day. I hope that he does. He really is auditioning for an ODI spot of Nicholls as well. But between all that, he makes some poor decisions in t20 which he doesn't seem to replicate as much in 50 over cricket cos his average there is very very healthy. He is fairly small guy, but he gets a lot of power out of hip, but some bigger boundaries oft see him caught. So he needs to learn to adjust end by end. He has an engineering degree so he is surely smart enough to work this out on his own.

With Seifert, NZ is now nearing last chance saloon after having tried Watling, Ronchi, Latham, Phillips and Blundell in a little over a year in limited overs cricket. 3 in 4 games now. And while he had a very good t20 smash, he will be playing out of position and his domestic stats are rather too low for me to get too excited about. He is also playing out of position.

I'd settle for a keeper bat who is serviceable in the team. I'm not getting excited by any "next Gilchrists" or "next Dhoni's" because there doesn't appear to be any around in NZC at the moment.

Last edited by Paddles on Thu Feb 08, 2018 7:14 am, edited 1 time in total.

"Your inclination to assume and contradict is typical of Narcissism which is nothing about being pretty like the Narcissus fable."

Going South wrote:bullshit D/L system. BCCI got robbed off a win. noway i. hell staffers can win this had they played full 50 overs with 5 wickets down.

Safrica were only 1 wicket down, after 7.2 overs, which was the last ball bowled before the rain.

Rain does typically favour the chasing team, but look where India really messed up besides not batting second after winning the toss.

India were 1/178 after 31 overs - they get only 111 runs off the next 19 overs. All batsmen to bat then went at under a run a ball after Kohli 75(83) and Dhawan 109 (105) built a great platform to launch from.

Rahane 8(13)Iyer 18(21)Dhoni 42*(43)Pandya 9(13)Kumar 5(7)

South Africa lost 22 overs, 132 balls, from which 88 runs was deducted. That is a rpo of just 4 runs an over. 202 in 28 overs is a rpo of over 7, which Safrica was already behind on after 7.2 overs, for an Indian score at less than 6.

The batsmen, Chahal, Yadav, and Pandya just did not give Kumar and Bumrah anything to work with at the end. And if rain is on the forecast, look to bat second when winning the toss.

I seriously do not understand what Dhoni is doing at times in limited overs games now for a number of years with his far too often "go slow". He will remain an ODI legend, but these types of batting scores do give support to accusations of selfish average padding or just not being as good as his rated reputation on raw stats claims to be.

He is one of the slickest glovemen I have ever watched, and obviously a very good batsman in limited overs, but is he playing overs 35/40 to 50 right? I personally think he is leaving it too late to launch an attack and going too "deep" as he puts it, too often.

"Your inclination to assume and contradict is typical of Narcissism which is nothing about being pretty like the Narcissus fable."

I agree with Paddles that Dhoni is on thin ice.He has not done anything in batting of note, and is blocking a place.Just bcoz of keeping and captaincy input, he is in the side.That is skating on thin ice.

Going South wrote:bullshit D/L system. BCCI got robbed off a win. noway i. hell staffers can win this had they played full 50 overs with 5 wickets down.

You are right but D/L always favours the chasing team.That's how the system works

Not "always".

If the rain is before the between innings break. it is widely held that the chasing team gets the best of it (in this post t20 era).

If the rain occurs in the second innings, it depends on how many wickets have fallen. Here it was just 1 wicket (not 5 as mentioned, nor even 3). So that was okay for South Africa. Had they been 5 wickets down, the chase would have been much more brutal. This is where the team batting first may secure a big advantage. But obtaining those early wickets are crucial for this.

So it is more accurate to say that rain typically favours the team batting second unless the rain occurs after the chasing team has lost a bunch of early wickets.

Last edited by Paddles on Sun Feb 11, 2018 4:28 am, edited 3 times in total.

"Your inclination to assume and contradict is typical of Narcissism which is nothing about being pretty like the Narcissus fable."